Flash; The Geopolitics of Collapse.

The recent adventure of Iraq only highlight the crumbling of capitalist
civilization. Virtually every nation in the world deplores the
invasion of Kuwait, they stand united by a single principle: money.
This adventure in far away lands is deeply rooted in the deepening
U.S. economic crisis; this will become more obvious as the crisis
progresses.

a large scale war between the U.S and Iraq is possible but not
likely. It is more likely that the present police action will
continue indefinitely. This would not come from George Bush's
humanitarianism but because of the great benefits to American
capitalism of a new (mini) cold war.

To escape the "Vietnam Syndrome," the rhetoric of this
crisis likes to seem brutally honest. "We are in the Gulf
to get oil to run our cars." There are two ways this argument
is still dishonest.

First, there is still the big lie that everyone is benefiting
from this society. Most people don't benefit from cars, TV, or
microwave ovens. Instead, they need their cars simply to go to
work. They need TV to distract themselves after work. And they
need microwave ovens to prepare quick, tasteless meals between
work and TV. Initially, when they look at the gulf crisis, people
can only think about the result of losing their cars. Eventually,
we must question the need for absurd machines to destroy the biosphere
while transporting us to dull, useless activities.

Second, the U.S. probably wants the price of oil to stay high
and wants the crisis to continue as long as possible. This serves
as a smoke screen for the decrease in wages/increase in unemployment
that capital needs to put through anyway. It allows Texas oil
producers to get back some of the money they lost when oil crashed
a few years back and it allows the Pentagon to stop all talk of
a peace dividend.

Beyond all this, the vague crisis mentality makes us vulnerable
any imaginable manipulations, from recent cuts in Medicare onward.
Today, every country in the world is going through an endless
series of crises and "austerity measures" - wage cuts,
price hikes and corrupt schemes. The Persian Gulf crisis gives
this decaying civilization an enemy out there to blame its condition
on. The possibilities are endless...